


saddle up my anger and ride and ride and ride

by outlaw_queened



Category: Once Upon a Time RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7678447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outlaw_queened/pseuds/outlaw_queened
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she’d looked in the mirror the morning before filming had begun, she’d seen another stranger looking back. This one has a bright face and light eyes and looks a decade younger than she had at the end of the season, and she’s transformed again, cleansed and returned to someone new. She doesn’t want to think about why, and she’s very good at getting what she wants. (A voice deep down says <i>No, no you aren’t</i>, and she dismisses it as well.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	saddle up my anger and ride and ride and ride

**Author's Note:**

> I abandoned this a few days after SDCC because honestly, don't I have better things to do with my time? A lovely lady said, "No." And here we are.
> 
> This is RPF, flower emoji and all. Don't like, don't read.

You might say it began with the panel, but that would be a deliberate misunderstanding of what had actually transpired. You might say it began with the reporters or Posable Barbie Jen, but that’s the sort of thinking that leaves Ginny rolling her eyes and Lana smiling that damned toned-down smile that means she’s being _real_. You might say it’s been building up for years, and maybe that’s closer to the truth.

 

When Jen thinks back, she can only say that it had come out of the summer hiatus, after she’d stopped filming altogether. She hadn’t realized how much the exhausting, endless Season Five had taken out of her until she’d been looking in the mirror and seen a stranger looking back with waxy skin and a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. 

 

She’d laughed at herself then, blamed her migraines for the headaches and stress that had permeated filming for her for months. She’d focused on the directing gig ahead of her and flatly refused to do any promotion for the show. 

 

And when she’d looked in the mirror the morning before filming had begun, she’d seen another stranger looking back. This one has a bright face and light eyes and looks a decade younger than she had at the end of the season, and she’s transformed again, cleansed and returned to someone new. 

 

She doesn’t want to think about why, and she’s very good at getting what she wants. (A voice deep down says _No, no you aren’t,_ and she dismisses it as well.) Filming is easier now, not quite as automatic as it had been through most of last season but still not quite as soul-sucking, and she finally considers the show again as something she can do for a long, long time. 

 

And it’s workable. She thinks of the hiatus in flashes when she needs to find her calmest center, closes her eyes and imagines how she’d direct Emma in a scene. (She won’t, she knows they won’t allow it, but if she _could_ –) She strides out after those quiet moments with her gait confident enough that Lana whistles and says, “Look at _you_ ,” and is gleeful when she stumbles and loses her focus.

 

She’s managing, though, distracting colleagues aside, and she can feel the static that had been her constant companion last season begin to dissipate. She hangs out with Josh and Ginny, laughs too hard at Lana’s jokes, and continues the comfortable friendship she has with Colin with extra determination. (It’s not _Colin’s_ fault that…) (It’s not Lana’s fault, either.)

 

Lana is in her element this season, swinging between the evil queen and Regina with such distinct acting that Jen’s awed and envious at once. To play that kind of duality every episode is a rare gift for an actor, and Lana steals the show so deftly that Jen can feel a migraine coming on when she dwells on it.

 

_This is Lana’s world, and we’re just living in it_. She’d been resentful about it before, for too long– and that resentment remains beneath the surface, of course. But that tension had exploded last year into enough of a feud that Jen had discovered quickly that the last thing in the world she wants is to let bitterness overwhelm the fondness she feels toward her coworkers. So she thinks it now with more than a little affection, watches Lana act her heart out and tries hard to be happy for her.

 

Regina doesn’t have a love interest anymore. The evil queen slinks around Hyde with a careless kind of seduction but it’s just another tool to her, not a reason for being. The episodes are resonant, writers eager to play with their favorite toy, and the plot is neater now. Adam and Eddy are determined to make it to Season Seven, and it shows. 

 

Everyone’s gamely prepared for SDCC, peering through talking points that don’t give many spoilers at all. There’s a massive evil queen poster visible from Jen’s hotel room, and Jen rubs her temples and stares too long at it. Last year, it had been white-on-black, eerie but evocative. It hadn’t looked anything like her, but she’d been thrilled as hell to see her face up there anyway.

 

This year, she plasters on a smile and practices talking points that…aren’t that bad, considering. She’s getting something to do, even if she knows it’ll be mostly lip service while her scenes will revolve around Hook and Emma. (Which is…fine. Right. Fine.)  _No_. There are teased storylines, she’s going to do her damned best to promote them, and she will believe not at all that any will come to fruition. 

 

Their first event of the day are the EW portraits, and they do a formal one first. Jared is crouched on the floor and the rest of them are shuffled around a bit, crowded around the seated men and then rearranged again until a reporter cocks his head and says, “How about we have the couple together?” Bex takes Lana’s hand and Lana smirks, draping it over her shoulder. 

 

Jen laughs and it comes out a little too wild to her ears, though no one notices. The reporter looks baffled. “Jennifer,” he clarifies, and motions to Colin. She stands behind him, sliding a hand onto his shoulder. The reporter’s brow creases and he gestures impatiently. “No, on his lap.” 

 

“What?” She doesn’t check herself in time and it’s disbelieving, unpleasant, the kind of response that had gotten her a nasty reputation during House. Colin laughs uncomfortably and Jen takes a deep breath and follows suit, settling awkwardly onto his lap.

 

It’s…ridiculous. They aren’t half-grown teenagers where she fits comfortably, and certainly not on the tiny chair that Colin’s perched on. She sits straight, stiffly, controlling her face into a bland smile as Lana, Bex, and Emilie crowd around behind them. Colin shuffles his hand around on her back, careful not to overstep, and…

 

She thinks about Sun Dogs again, remembers framing people in the cameras, considers how she’d have done the portraits for this. Emma is the main character. Emma would be in the center, her love interest with a hand on her shoulder and her best friend perched on the other seat, Josh behind and Jared still in front. Emilie and Bex framing Josh.

 

It’s fine. They’re back on their feet soon enough, the humiliating pose gone for some photo booth fun, and Jen smiles and reacts enthusiastically to every new order, determined not to sour today before it’s even begun.

 

She can feel eyes on her between photos. She knows whose they are without turning. There had been a time when she’d thought that this… _thing_ where she and Lana are too in tune with the other’s emotions had been about friendly rivalry, and then maybe resentment. Now it feels like genuine concern on Lana’s part. Which doesn’t offset Jen’s resentment at all.

 

(It had been the fight that had finally thawed the chill between them, the day after Sean had departed at last with much relief from everyone involved in that disaster. It had been a snide comment from Jen that had snowballed into no-fucks-given Lana finally being set off, an explosion of _why aren’t you fighting_ that Jen had taken as _why aren’t you more like me._  She’d lashed out, torn into Lana with punches that had never seemed to land and Lana’s eyes had gotten cooler and cooler until it had been like chipping at a wall of ice and Jen had faltered and started to sob.

 

There had been arms around her and a kiss to her temple and Jen had sunken into it, slid her hands onto the small of Lana’s back and laid her head against her shoulder and then they’d gotten drinks. Lana had tucked a flower from her trailer into Jen’s hair and grinned and Jen had flushed and they’d finally felt _right_ again. Except now Lana watches her more. And she sees much more than she should.)

 

It’s a relief to get out of that room, the air oppressive and her fixed smile grating even on her. They’re due to start the panel soon. Jen likes Yvette– she’s always been a dependable kind of sensible and she hasn’t held a grudge after the time Jen had thoughtlessly thrown her into a ship war– and she’s looking forward to a break, easy questions and easy answers and nothing more expected of her.

 

It’s easy enough to phase out the questions, smile and laugh when everyone else is laughing and work on autopilot until Yvette says her name. “Colin and Jen, this is first a request directly from the Twitters,” and she perks up, the smile already settling on her face as she’s requested to recreate a _pose_ from last year. Jesus. Her smile is getting flatter, more like a grimace as Colin obediently rests his head against her shoulder and she moves like Fairytale Barbie, crooking limbs and sculpting plastic expressions and another attempt at a modulated laugh that stutters and becomes a weird giggle instead. 

 

She remembers the Jen in the mirror again, remembers waxen features and wonders how long it’ll take before they settle in again. The SDCC media blitz is only a day. She can handle this, this almost impersonal loss of self that takes hold and restrains her into a cage. She wonders how long she’d been in the cage before she’d realized, and she wonders how she’d gone from research in a dusty library with Dark Swan in her palm to sobbing in Lana’s arms six months later. 

 

She’s barely paying attention, commenting on the tail end of Colin’s next question before there’s one about Emma and Regina. Inwardly, she cringes, remembering well how much she’d infuriated the Swan Queeners last year. Lana takes point on these questions and fields them effortlessly, and Jen just has to nod and smile through them and she can probably avoid a controversy, for a change.

 

And a little spark of rebellion blooms as the question comes, an in-depth request for analysis of the relationship as it changes. It isn’t about wedding dresses or Hook’s…hook. It’s the kind of question that Bex and Josh had gotten– that Lana always gets– just a tiny bit less fluff than the usual SDCC fare, and something shifts in her stomach and she wants to _speak_. 

 

“Gosh,” Lana says. “That’s…”

 

“That’s,” Jen echoes, struggling to jerk from vapidity to _focus_ , and still somehow taken aback. Yvette gives them another minute and Lana begins, choosing her words carefully. Jen twists her earlobe, biting back the urge to interrupt and thinking about–

 

Fairytale Barbie is here to be the pliable audience insert, to smile and flirt and make suggestive comments about her love interest. Jen had refused to promote all summer in a fit of pique, had dragged her feet on the way back to filming and SDCC, and now every part of her quivers with the desire to do something _different_ , to break out of her self-made mold.

 

She wants to say something. She wants to _reach out_ , to…to express something that she can’t quite put her finger on. Gratitude? No, she doesn’t owe the Swan Queeners anything. Certainly not support, which is tantamount to false hope. 

 

She thinks, maybe, she’d just like to talk to the people out there who’d probably been disappointed with Dark Swan. 

 

Lana is still talking, going on and on to feed her favored fanbase, and Jen nods and laughs at the right place and is…anxious, suddenly, like stepping into a party where she wasn’t invited. Lana, of course, has fought hard to be the guest of honor at this party. “Emma has saved her many times, and has been a great–“

 

“And vice versa,” Jen puts in, nodding quickly and pressing a nail against her upper lip as her heart beats harder. She can feel Lana’s eyes back on her, startled, as she echoes it. It’s the first time Lana’s sounded off-balance in what feels like forever, and she recovers quickly, rambling onward, eyes flickering back to Jen in hesitant expectation.

 

Jen cuts her off mid-ramble and oh god, she can almost sense the combination of irritation and amusement from Lana at it. But she rehearses the words in her mind, speaks evenly and inoffensively, and at the end of her reply, she’s bouncing in her seat and giggling at the next question, feeling oddly exhilarated by something she might have actually done right. 

 

The panel goes on for a long time more, and there’s more laughing, more casual responses, more of Lana staring at her with that unfathomable stare. Jen has been careful about looking at Lana too much this year after seeing some of the pictures from last year (Why is she incapable of looking away, why does Lana _do this_ to her, she’s the epitome of difficult and unavailable and Jen _can’t_ –), and every time she dares look back at her, there’s a jolt of electricity and then–

 

And then.

 

The minute the panel is over, they’re given a few minutes to unwind before Jen has to rush to another panel, and she’s alone in a back room with Lana against better judgment. “Just want to freshen up,” she mumbles, moving past her.

 

Lana, of course, is still Lana. “You answered the Swan Queen question,” she notes, eyebrows raised and a little bit of admiration in her eyes that sparks like fire in Jen’s stomach. Lana notices, of course, and she drawls, “Jennifer Morrison, I didn’t think you had it in you.” 

 

“Funny,” Jen says, embarrassed and helplessly attracted. “I don’t have anything against the relationship. I just don’t like answering questions about fans’ imaginary–“

 

Lana sweeps down before she can babble something probably nasty and presses a kiss to Jen’s cheek. Jen’s already on edge from the panel and the kiss leaves her warm and dazed, overly sensitized and forever too needy around Lana. Lana _knows_ it, which is infuriating, and it doesn’t help when she presses a second kiss to the corner of Jen’s mouth, just close enough to be suggestive–

 

Jen responds because she always does, because Lana does things to her that aren’t entirely rational and are definitely _terrible_. She jerks around– no, she jerks _Lana_ around, pushes her against the wall and kisses her hard, smudging lipstick and biting and pulling her bottom lip. Lana lets out a breathless sigh and slides her fingers through Jen’s already-loose hair, tangling it even more, and Jen kisses her and refuses to think about any of this until Lana murmurs her name and she can’t _not_ think about it.

 

She staggers back, pushing Lana away from her and shaking with renewed frustration. Lana is breathing hard, her lips kiss-swollen and her newly cut hair puffier than it should be, her eyes wild. “No,” Jen bites out.

 

“No?” Lana repeats, and Jen can see the stubborn thrust of her lip, the disbelief that comes on the rare occasions when Lana doesn’t get her way. Oh, fuck, she wants to suck on that lip and turn that expression into nothing but dazed pleasure.

 

“No!” Jen snaps, backing away some more. “I know that this is about…about your _fucking_ crush on…” Because Lana’s never been quiet about how much she wants to fuck Emma– Lana tries on her red jacket and then slides it back onto Jen, _it looks better on you_ – Lana offers to rehearse Emma/Hook scenes with her with sly, shameless hunger that’s never quite so strong when it’s just Jen without a costume– “I am _not_ Emma Swan!” she snarls, plasticine Barbie growing red hot and melting fast. “I’m not some…knight in shining armor every time I do something you like! I’m not her! I’m not–“ 

 

She thinks Lana might snap back, might delay her panel because they’re going to have it out right now on the convention floor, make a scene that Jen can’t afford because she isn’t Disney’s darling and no one gives a fuck about Emma or Jen or anything other than the dutiful love interest–

 

But instead, Lana stalks forward and then settles a hand on her shoulder and says with the sort of eyes she reserves for tearful fans, “What’s going on with you, Jenny?”

 

Jen sinks into a chair, weary and craving everything she’s never found a way to have. Lana pulls one up next to her, a careful space between them, and waits in silence. “I have to go to my next panel,” Jen says weakly.

 

Lana doesn’t respond, her eyes still on Jen’s with unchanging focus. Jen gulps in a breath and then another, sobs threatening to emerge, and Lana waits with a hand resting on her shoulder blade and her gaze attentive. 

 

Jen says, “I really just…I just…” She gulps back another breath. “Last year was hell, you know?” She chokes on _you know_ because oh god, she’s not supposed to acknowledge that. She’s not supposed to think about any of it when it sends her into an existential abyss and makes her hate _everything_ , most of all herself, most of all Lana and _why aren’t you fighting_ because she doesn’t know what the answer to that question is still. She’s supposed to be a good little soldier and love every minute of the show, and if she ever dwells on how much last season sucked out of her, she might never stop.

 

Lana’s eyes are clear, bright brown pinpoints in a tunnel that threatens to swallow Jen alive in darkness. Jen can’t tear her gaze away. “I know,” she says, and then lightly, “There was a whole tagline about that, or something.” 

 

“Shut up,” Jen says, shoving her and laughing wetly, from teetering on a precipice to finding something to hold onto. “You’re such a dick sometimes.” But she can breathe again, can stand up with legs that shudder a bit but hold her weight, can feel Lana’s hand squeeze hers without feeling numb.

 

“Go,” Lana says, standing. “Do your thing, Award-Winning Director Morrison,” her voice is playful but her eyes glow with something like encouragement, something like pride.

 

Jen’s heart responds, as it does, in all the usual distracting ways, and she flees to her panel to focus on something– _anything_ – else instead. 

 

* * *

 

It’s no less infuriating when another reporter– this one a regular– orders her next to “Hook”; but at that point in the day, she’s been worn down to defeat and lets Emilie mock and Josh laugh good-naturedly and doesn’t fight it at all. She squeezes onto a small sofa with Colin next to her and Lana crowded in beside him, the latter looking perfectly at ease.

 

But the day is almost over, and she’s going to get a long break from promotion now to film. She remembers last year’s promotion wistfully, remembers going on about twisted fairytales she’d read with so much enthusiasm that she almost wants to slap her past self upside the head for her naïveté. What had she been thinking, that she’d really get an opportunity to…

 

To…

 

She _won’t_ think about this. Not again. She goes back to her hotel and swallows down enough of her meds that she’s blitzed out for hours, and when she wakes up, it’s with a new migraine and a flight to LA that she can’t miss. 

 

And it’s back to going through the motions, though she’s more on edge suddenly; more aware of too many things she’s accustomed to filtering out to survive. She films with the others and it’s still _good_ , it’s still scenes she’s enjoying, and it’s even more frustrating waiting for the other shoe to drop than it is having it crash down onto her. 

 

She fucks up one night and looks through her Instagram comments. She’d made the mistake of posting a photo of herself with a baby– she’s done it so often over the past six months that Ginny had commented on it and her cheeks had flamed red because, god. She doesn’t want to think about it like  _running out of time_ even in the casual, laughing way that Ginny had– and now she’s scrolling through dozens of comments telling her that she should be having Hook’s baby and nearly as many telling her to have Colin’s. 

 

She grimaces. Some days it feels as though she’s built a floor beneath her feet to walk on safely through life, firm and as strong as she could, and it’s beginning to cave in no matter what she does. Some days she can imagine it collapsing around her, imagine it curving up around her into walls that will swallow her alive. And every comment is another possible one that Helen or Colin might see, that might strain relationships she’s worked hard on and leave her to clean up another self-made mess.

 

There’s one comment that makes her laugh– _You would have beautiful babies with Lana, yes?_ – and then want to cry a tiny bit, because open marriage or not, Lana is supremely off-limits. They’re terrible together and Jen doesn’t have it in her nature to  _share_ and Lana veers between attraction and disappointment when it comes to Jen and Jen is maybe a little in love with Lana but it isn’t mutual. And it’s never going to happen, not beyond a few drunken mistakes that meant nothing and a few kisses that should mean even less. 

 

Lana is still keeping an eye on her, though, which means gasping open-mouthed kisses in Jen’s trailer after filming one evening that Jen doesn’t have the strength to resist. “I’m not her,” she says weakly, the fire faded already. “Lana, I can't.” 

 

“I never asked you to be her,” Lana says, and sometimes Lana knows the exact wrong thing to say– to sow discord, to pick fights, to wreak havoc with cold precision– and sometimes she knows the exact right thing, too. So they get drunk, and make some drunken mistakes, and Jen wakes up in the morning to Lana nestled behind her with her lips still pressed to the base of her spine. 

 

It’s almost like it’s real, for a minute there.

 

The next day is Lana sauntering through set with glittering eyes, pleased as punch to be the Evil Queen today. Jen’s legs are still wobbling too much and she trips twice and has to sit down for a while. Lana laughs at her but also brings her lunch, so Jen is willing to forgive.

 

It’s been a not-terrible day, as far as days go, and then she gets back to her trailer and there’s a missed call from her agent informing her about an award she’s… “The Teen Choice Awards,” she repeats, her stomach bottoming out unpleasantly. “I won a Choice TV Actress at the TCAs?” 

 

“You won Choice Liplock with Colin, actually,” comes the response. “Lana took the actress nomination and win this year.” 

 

“And win,” Jen says faintly. She still remembers the embarrassment of the year before at the People’s Choice Awards– _campaigning_ , as though she’d thought that her fans cared at all for her instead of Emma’s relationships, as though she’d thought that ABC might have wanted to promote her Dark Swan for something– and still losing to whichever network had negotiated their publicity better. This year, ABC is pulling out all the stops for their favorite actress and their favorite…

 

_Teen Choice Liplock_. She cringes. It’s another attempt to make Hook and Emma the power couple they’ve never quite mastered and it’s another humiliation to tack onto her name on IMDB– right when she’s working on becoming a legitimate director. Right when the last thing she needs to be taken seriously in the industry is a _kissing award_. And Lana had taken the only respectable award– one Jen’s been nominated for and lost before– and she finally cracks, slams her finger on the end button and storms from her trailer in a desperate need to _punch_ something–

 

And instead nearly crashes into Lana, who looks startled but pleased. “Jen! Did you hear the news?”

 

“Sure,” she bites out, her fists clenched. “Congrats, I guess. Good to know that Disney still has it in them to humiliate us. Or…you, anyway, since I couldn’t even manage one for myself but for my _lips_.” She isn’t thinking much further than _wipe the smile off Lana’s face_ , and once she does that, bitterness wells up more sharply. “I bet this is the award that puts you on the map as an actress to hire. If you’re lucky, you might even get to play someone’s washed-up mom on a Nickelodeon show someday. Win double the Teen Choice awards.” 

 

Lana stares at her, visibly taken aback, and Jen hates herself even more than she does Lana at that moment. “What do you think?” she snarls, and she doesn’t know who she’s talking to, who she’s tearing apart right now. “That these awards _matter_? You renegotiated your contract and you thought that a _surfboard_ would give you legitimacy? Would give you fans? You aren’t anyone’s choice. You aren’t–“ Her voice hitches and she presses a hand to her mouth, horrified. 

 

_You aren’t anyone’s choice._ Lana backs away from her with barely a second glance, her dark eyes stricken, and Jen can only stare in horror. She can’t find the words in time to undo the damage she’d wrought– she can’t find any words, at all, and she stumbles back to her trailer with aching regret and frustration. 

 

None of this is Lana’s fault. None of this is Lana’s hangup, and Jen slams the door of the trailer and screams, her eyes squeezing shut and her heart in agony. 

 

* * *

 

Lana is going to the TCAs. Jen finds this out via Twitter, because Lana hasn’t talked to her all week. She can harbor a grudge for months, as Jen well knows, and Jen feels sick every time she sees her until it’s Friday and her last chance to talk to her about it.

 

“I didn’t mean what I…” Jen licks her lips nervously. Lana’s eyes are ice cold. “I was just…I have my own issues there.” Her eyes dull and she’s doing this wrong again, twisting her words into all the wrong things to say and she isn’t Lana. She doesn’t know how to use words like a scalpel, digging deep to carve out the poison she’d left within her. “I’m happy for you,” she says finally, struggling to find the bits of herself that really are. “You’ve worked hard for all of this and you’re…” She sucks in a shaky breath. “You’re pretty much the only reason we’re still on the air, and you deserve this.” 

 

“You think the TCAs are a humiliation,” Lana says, arching a dubious eyebrow.

 

Jen breathes in again, then out. “I think the Choice Liplock is,” she admits. “I think it’s…it’s pretty damn impressive that you got yours when you were up against a bunch of twenty-somethings.”

 

Lana says, a half-smile on her face, “Don’t be ridiculous. The network decided to promote us this year, that’s all.” 

 

“It’s good,” Jen says, and struggles to suppress every selfish bone in her body. “It’s good that they’re doing it for your big season.” 

 

A shadow of concern crosses Lana’s face, and she’s so damned _sensitive_ sometimes that Jen can’t stand it, can’t handle Lana this in tune to what she’s saying beneath her words. “It’s good,” Jen says again, this time too hastily. “I really am happy for you.” 

 

She edits Sun Dogs the night of the TCAs, buries herself in anything but this awful award that she’s been increasingly irrational about. She turns on her TV for a few minutes, keeping an eye out for Lana and watching with dread as awards are presented. 

 

Lana presents one, and Jen notices immediately the misspelled _Parilla_ onscreen and cringes. Lana laughs it off, usually, but at an awards show where she’s _receiving_ an award–

 

But no, she doesn’t receive one, either. She’s listed as the winner and that’s all. There’s no presentation, no speech, nothing but the winning sci-fi/fantasy actor formally receiving his own award instead. Lana is smiling in the audience; but there’s a gleam of displeasure in her eyes, the kind she’ll attribute later to disrespect of her fans but Jen knows her well enough to know that it’s embarrassment and resignation, too.

 

The Choice Liplock comes much later, and Jen cries when she gets it and still doesn’t know why. It’s a stupid award she doesn’t have to put anywhere. Everyone in the industry knows how little it means. It’s something to laugh about, not another crack in the floor beneath Jen that feels like it might be the one to do her in. 

 

She thinks that if she ever unpacks all those emotions– if she figures out what this missing puzzle piece is and why it’s taking everything out of her– she thinks she might just shatter, right then, a dozen glass shards of her essence gone for good. 

 

* * *

 

In the morning, it’s Lana’s face that lingers in her mind instead of her own in the mirror, and she takes a deep breath and writes out a tweet. No, an Instagram post. Maybe _that_ will remind Lana that she still doesn’t follow Jen there, she thinks wryly. 

 

She scrolls through her phone, looking for a selfie of the two of them, and finds a photo from the night they’d had drinks together. Lana’s hair is a mess and her face is bright and wild, her lips half pressed against Jen’s jaw and half squashed into a pucker that misses the mark. Jen can feel her face split into a too-wide smile, can feel her heart beat just a hair faster at a private moment she can _never_ share with the fans. 

 

No, this isn’t for the fans. This is for Lana, and that means that she can’t post something new that’ll distract from the congratulations. She bites her lip, still guilty at lashing out at Lana, and finds a photo that’s already online.

 

She won’t promote the show’s win. She won’t promote the Liplock. No one can argue that this is about promotion now or demand equal treatment, not if…

 

It takes about ten seconds before she’s politely prodded to tweet about the Liplock. It takes a few minutes and a lot of incomprehensible keysmashing replies– most in Portuguese– before she gets a _YALL NEED TO GET MARRIED_ tweet. It’s a bit easier to laugh at this one.

 

The tweets and replies come in all day, growing and growing in volume as Captain Swan fans demand acknowledgement, and she’s so tired. She doesn’t want to play this PR game anymore. She just wants Lana to come back to Vancouver smirking at her like she’s somehow won this round and Jen has been conquered, helpless, with only a single tweet. She wants Lana to smile and forget the disappointment of the night before, and she wants her to give Jen that smile that sometimes makes her feel as though she really could be the center of Lana’s world.

 

And maybe she hasn’t been completely forgiven, because Lana’s reply is a gracious congratulations to her in return for her own award. “ _Mmmmwah!”_ Jen is inexpressibly fond. 

 

She gets a pointed reminder from her agent to tweet about her own award for her fanbase. More replies rain in, more demands for her to acknowledge the Liplock.  _I thought you were better than to give in to bullies_ , one tweet says disapprovingly. _I hope you and Colin celebrated in real life instead ;),_ says another, and Jen is nauseous again and prays she’ll be able to see Colin later without grimacing. 

 

They film a quick scene that afternoon and Colin congratulates her. “My first American award,” he says, laughing. “Preferably I’d like to aim a bit higher than that next time.” She nods stiffly, plastering a smile on her face. 

 

They flub the scene twice, manage it with wooden chemistry, and by the end of the day, Colin is eyeing her cautiously and says, “Are you all right?” She stares at him, her stomach full with tension. “You just seem a bit…hostile today.” 

 

He’d only had to say that once last year, right around when they’d been acting through the Dark Hook arc. Lana had already frozen Jen out and Jen had been dissatisfied and irritable about more than Lana, and she’d started to lag for the first time all season. Colin had broached the subject with the same caution then, too, as though he’d believed that she might blow up at him.

 

But it isn’t his fault. Not what happened last year, and the reception had been nearly just as negative to him as to her. Not the Liplock or the fact that good things seem to happen to him at her expense. Not the _shippers_ who make enough insinuations that it’s bled into her personal life. None of what happens is any more his fault than it is a side effect of him being…a good-looking man. 

 

And that, she’s learned from years and years in the limelight, is the sum of it. 

 

She hugs him briefly, reassures him again that she’s fine and they’re fine, and he looks miffed but accepts it with grace. And a tiny voice inside her that sounds a little bit like Lana at her grumpiest says, _You shouldn’t have to be the one to apologize._

 

She makes a quick escape home after that, forcing herself not. to. think. Not about that, not about the opportunities and advancement Colin has gotten from the arc that had been promised to her years ago. Not about the promotion or even the damned shippers who she has to silence instead of her married costar. Not about how much she resents–

 

She resents–

 

She squeezes her eyes shut and texts Lana, a quick _can we talk?_ without any elaboration. _I’ll be right over_ , is the immediate response, and Jen sinks to the ground and breathes.

 

She isn’t going to think about any of this. She’s going to take advantage of the fact that she and Lana are doing pretty okay at the friends thing lately and distract herself from it. She’s going to– She gets another sharp text from her agent about her fanbase, this one a reminder that _playing director won’t pay the bills_ , and she shoves her phone onto the coffee table and waits in stiff silence. 

 

Lana knocks on the door, bright-cheeked and grinning from her day off, and Jen lets her in and finds some wine. “I’m not trying to seduce you,” Jen informs her primly. 

 

Lana wrinkles her nose. “Well, that’s a disappointment.” But she’s smiling, curious but not pushing anything just yet. Jen knows Lana, knows that she’s getting a reprieve, at best, and Lana’s going to tug all of this out of her by the end of the night. Oh, god. Why did she call her? 

 

“Why did you?” Lana is saying, and Jen doesn’t know if she’d spoken aloud or not. “Don’t you have a crowd of closer friends half your age you can call over for drinks?” 

 

“Oh, come on,” Jen protests, relieved at the light mocking in Lana’s tone. “Rose isn’t _half my age_. We’re both adults.” Of course, Lana doesn’t grasp what it’s like to be alone in your late thirties and surrounded by people with husbands, with children, ready to tackle the next stage of life together.

 

“Uh-huh.” Lana gives her a side eye. “Was it too late past her curfew?” 

 

“Hey!” This is easier than dealing with _anything_ , and she responds good-naturedly. “Want me to go after the people you spend your time with?” She has some choice comments, though they might cut into the good-natured bit. 

 

Lana spreads her hands placatingly. “No, no. I think Rose is a great kid.” Jen jerks up, eyes narrowed. Lana says, “And I think you are avoiding right now.” 

 

Jen sinks back onto the couch, sipping moodily at her wine. Lana keeps her wine glass balanced between her middle fingers, elbow on her knee and eyes fixed on Jen. “Why am I here, Jen?” 

 

“I don’t know,” Jen says tiredly. “It’s been a long day. I…I wanted to congratulate you in person.” 

 

Lana laughs, just as tired. “I went in with very few expectations, and I think I was still let down. They couldn’t even spell my name right.” She rolls her eyes, then puts a hand on Jen’s knee. It’s warm and soft and it feels like forgiveness. “You tried to warn me.” 

 

It’s a suggestion of nobility that Jen can’t accept, not when it’s so far from the truth. “I wasn’t warning you. I was…being a dick.” She gulps down some more wine, too much to be a polite sip. “I really do think it’s great that the network is supporting you so much right now. I just…” 

 

“You wish they’d have supported you, too.” Lana squeezes her knee, her gaze intent on Jen. “I don’t blame you. I’d probably have felt the same way.” 

 

“Yeah,” Jen says, a little dizzy from the wine and those eyes and the warm hand against her skin. “It’s…I really shouldn’t talk about this.” 

 

Lana’s lips purse. She’s disappointed, of course, _why aren’t you fighting_ , inspecting Jen and finding her wanting yet again. Jen’s jaw tightens and she can feel frustration threatening to erupt– at Lana, always Lana, because with everyone else it’s apologies and smiles and doing what she’s told– and she finishes her glass of wine, pours more with jerky movements, drinks again.

 

There’s a buzzing from the coffee table, and Jen sinks back against the couch as Lana reaches to pass her her phone. “Here, if you’re sober enough to talk– oh, it’s just a text–“ Her brow furrows and Jen snatches the phone.

 

“Fuck _off_ ,” she hisses, staring at the newest message. This one invokes the no-arguments _Heard from Horowitz_ and she wants to scream, to bury herself in her couch and suffocate and let the world forget her.

 

Lana watches her in silence as Jen squeezes the cushions of the couch, white-knuckled, and hurls the phone across the room. When she does speak, it’s tentative, unlike Lana at all. “All this over the Liplock?” 

 

“Of course all this,” Jen grinds out. “Haven’t you met Colin's fanbase? I can’t even congratulate a coworker without it being about them, and I’m sure they’re hounding Adam now, too. They won’t stop until I find some way to appease them–“

 

“I meant all this from you, not them,” Lana murmurs, still staring at her. “All this over the romance you like?” 

 

_All this._ The refusal to tweet about it, the hostility toward Colin, the summer of stifling every stray thought about what had gone on the season before. Every damned tear she’d had to shed last season only to alienate the viewers from Emma completely. _All this over the romance you like?_

 

She bursts into tears, loud and gasping and awful, and Lana slides her glass out of trembling fingers and slides her arm around Jen’s shoulders. Jen falls into her, buries herself in a hug that Lana carries her through fiercely, kisses her hair and cheeks and holds her close enough that Jen’s tears are blotted out by the fabric of her tee. “I hate it,” she whispers into Lana’s shoulder. “I think I hate it.” 

 

Lana strokes her hair, fingers sliding in and out with a rhythm that’s almost soothing. “The romance?” 

 

Jen shudders, words spilling free like the cracking floor beneath her had been a dam instead. “All of it.” She can’t do this again, not after House. She’s been careful to play the game and stay away from shippers and do her job, and she can’t fall back into. “I hate the romance. I hate…I hate everything _Hook_ got that was supposed to be for Emma. I hate tiptoeing around Colin because of _shippers_ and because I’m not supposed to be angry and I hate the promotion and I _really_ hate that _goddamned Dark Hook arc_!” _No. No_. She’s being swept away in the undertow, out to sea without an anchor. She can’t admit any of this, not to herself, not when it means accepting how miserable she–

 

“I tried not to think about it,” she chokes out. “This is the way the business goes. I couldn’t– I couldn’t carry the show without him, and I _get_ it, I get that this is what had to happen–“

 

“It did not,” Lana says. She’s leaned back, her hands cradling Jen’s face and her eyes piercing. “They never even gave you a chance.” Another bout of tears emerges, and Lana brushes them away and still holds her firm in her gaze. “They didn’t do right by you.” 

 

“I wanted to…I thought if I could be the villain, they might love me the way they love you,” Jen whispers, shutting her eyes and letting the last defeated tears leak through. She hadn’t realized how much pain she’d been in then, not until she’d come up for air this summer and found _control_ , found a place where she’d been the master of her own vision. It had been so long since she’d last broken from the line– since she’d resigned herself to being compliant, to being pliable, to being exactly what others asked for and nothing more or less– that she hadn’t even known she’d been breathing until she’d returned underwater. 

 

She thinks, maybe, she’s beginning to understand some things better that she’d never quite gotten before. 

 

She hesitates, raising red-rimmed eyes again to meet Lana’s. “I used to think that…that the whole thing with _them_ –“ _Them_ , Swan Queen, the sometimes-bane of her fan outreach experience– “I really hated it, you know? Like I couldn’t stand alone without being _yours_.”

 

Lana smoothes down her hair, brushes it from where it’s matted to her hair. “Jen, it’s fandom. They’re fickle as fuck. Half the time, I don’t know which overture is going to be turned into ammunition against me. The other half the time, it’s your Captain Swan fans jumping on me.” She laughs wryly. “They love you.” 

 

“I don’t think so.” She can’t imagine why they would– where the hell they are when the tracking comes in, if they exist. She can’t imagine why anyone would when even Lana prefers her fictional counterpart. “But…I guess it isn’t that different, being yours or being Hook’s.” She sucks in a breath. “And I guess it’s good that so many people want Emma to be loved. She…she should get that.”

 

“So should you,” Lana says gently, and the friendly-rivalry-turned-unfriendly is none of those things anymore, just Lana with her hands against Jen’s skin and nothing but kindness in her eyes. Jen doesn’t know how they’d strayed so far from this, but she thirsts for it, yearns in a way that she knows she’ll never be able to forget again. “I know you have these…hangups about Emma– and me,” she says, wrinkling her nose uncomfortably. “Emma isn’t _real_ , Jen. I’m not in love with her. Just because I want to fuck you with that leather jacket on–“ 

 

Jen can feel the explosive laughter building an instant before it emerges in a gust, overwhelming her wet eyes until she’s crying again, curling up into herself and struggling to keep her eyes on Lana’s. 

 

Lana has her hand on Jen’s knee again, and Jen can feel it like it’s scorching her skin. “I think that Emma is a character with a lot of admirable qualities,” she murmurs. “And I may not be quite as in tune with Emma as you are, but damn if I didn’t watch her last year and think of you.” 

 

“Last year,” Jen repeats dubiously, swiping away tears. “When she was beaten down and crying every episode and the audience hated her?” 

 

Lana’s eyes are warm. “When she was isolated and demeaned and she still kept going.” She smiles at Jen, an apology in her eyes for an argument they’d had months before. “We fight in different ways, Jen.”

 

It’s somehow– always, how does she always do this?– exactly what she needs to hear, and she jerks forward, tangles a hand into Lana’s hair and kisses her hard. She tastes saltwater on Lana’s lips– Jen’s tears, passed to Lana and back to herself– and Lana hums her approval against them with a muttered, “You didn’t even need the wine,” and Jen is laughing into the kiss, stroking Lana’s arm and savoring every moment she has her. 

 

It doesn’t solve anything, not when they’re sinking into bed together or when Jen sets out with stubborn determination to make Lana scream. Not when there are more kisses and yes– plenty of screams, and sighs, and more smiles than there ever have been with them before. None of this is a _solution._ There are still a half dozen text messages on her phone and hundreds of frustrated tweets piling in. There’s still the world outside this room that expects her to go on, regardless of her bitterness or resentments. 

 

It all seems a little bit easier, though, when she’s lying on her back with Lana curled against her and the weight of all those confessions easing off of the cracking floor beneath her. “I have to make that post, don’t I.” 

 

Lana sighs, a reluctant concession. “You can just tweet something generic.” 

 

“It wouldn't be fair.” She can’t bear to post a photo of herself kissing Colin on her Instagram, can’t deal with the comments to _that_ , so instead she finds art that isn’t explicit and writes a thank you to the fans for _The show – The #liplocks – The Parilla_. She’s sure the fan outcry will be loud enough that she’ll have to change that one, but she’s rather satisfied with it as it is now.

 

Lana groans but kisses her shoulder blade anyway, smug at her inclusion regardless of the spelling. “I’m going to get an Emmy one day and it’ll be spelled like that on the gold,” she says dismally, but her eyes are dancing. “The Parrilla, eh?” She wriggles against Jen, a knee inserting itself between Jen’s legs. “I can give pretty good Parrilla.” 

 

“Oh, god,” Jen says, and she barely manages to hit the post button before she’s back on her back, Lana on top of her and nibbling her jaw. 

 

She slams the computer shut and closes her eyes, her hands moving to cup Lana’s ass, and she thinks that if she would look at herself in the mirror right now, she wouldn’t recognize herself, either. There are new lines on her face, new firmness in her heart, a quiet determination that’s beginning to burrow through it now that willful obliviousness is no longer an option.

 

And she thinks she might be ready for what comes next at last.

 

 

 


End file.
